Haiti day three -- best day yet!

March 29, 2012

Today I woke up and had a small heart attack because Christina was not in her bed. I jumped out of bed in a panic and Sophie, who was still in bed, shushed me to be quiet, Christina was asleep next to her.   Sophie told me she was awakened to Christina pulling on Sophie's toes, trying to wake her up. When Sophie opened her eyes, Christina climbed into her bed and fell right back to sleep. So sweet! She had stirred a couple of times through the night, but never actually woken up, and I am pretty sure she did not wet her pull up either.

We got dressed for breakfast and went downstairs to another feast. Once again Christina loved the yogurt and wanted me to feed it to her.   She smacked her lips with delight after each bite.

After breakfast we packed our bathing suits and towels because we had arranged for a driver to take us to a hotel with a pool for the afternoon. He arrived promptly at 10am and Christina willingly piled into the car with us and was so excited to be on an excursion!  Huge change from yesterday when she shut down when we got in the car for lunch. Today she pointed at things, cried out "chen" when she saw dogs walking on the side of the road. She was very interested in everything we passed. We arrived at a hotel with a nice pool, outdoor bar and patio area. It was not at all crowded and it looked as though we were not the only Americans. Our driver arranged for us to stay at the hotel for a couple of hours. 

We changed into our bathing suits, which Christina was pretty happy about but when we went to the pool area she got very shy and quiet. She really does not like to be in new situations. Can't really blame her. She sat on my lap with her head on my shoulder and was silent. Weston and Sophie got in the water and I walked over to the steps, but she wanted none of it. Eventually she let Weston hold her and her took her into the water about waist deep. She was not so sure about that and wanted to get out. So he gave her back to me, I dried off her legs and we sat quietly for a few minutes under the umbrella. She wanted me to sit on the towel, so we arranged the towel beneath the chair until it was to her liking. (Over and over and over. She did not like it when the towel moved around when she wiggled on the chair.) 

Meanwhile, we were quite the spectacle for those staying at the hotel. We got plenty of stares from the locals eating lunch, and even the Americans felt it was ok to stare at us. Guess I will have to get used to that. The hotel had wireless Internet, this was the first time we were able to contact anyone back home to let them know we were safe, so we sent emails and iPad texts to family. I worked on my iPad as Christina got used to her surroundings. We had ordered some bottled soda to drink, not knowing if the water was safe, and I made the huge mistake of giving Christina a couple of sips. When the sugar and caffeine hit her system, she was crazy! (We asked a couple of Americans who sat near us if the water/ice was safe, and they said yes, so we had water with lunch.  So nice to have clean ice!)  We Skyped a few people and she was extra hyper! She decided I made a terrific jungle gym and proceeded to climb all over me. At one point she jumped off the chair and if I had not caught her she would have fallen straight on her head onto the concrete. Totally fearless and unaware of the possibility of getting hurt. She waved to family and friends on Skype, blew kisses and acted silly. After we hung up, we took her back to the pool and she braved the water, but only up to her knees. She was very content to sit next to me on the step and splash Sophie. I image she had never before experienced a pool; it must have been quite overwhelming.

At one point she was happily running around the patio area and ran straight towards the water. Right past Weston, who wasn't paying attention. I screamed for him to grab her and at the last second he got ahold of her arm, before she splashed into the water.  It dawned on us that we haven't had to worry about one of our kids falling into a pool for YEARS.  Our kids are now old enough that we have been able to let our parent guard down.  Our parent radar is rusty!  So we have to figure out how to get back to being aware of where she is at all times.  Especially because I have a feeling she is going to be into everything.  She is very active and loves to climb and jump.  We are going to have to kid-proof our house and retrain ourselves to keep an eye on a little one 24/7.

We played in the pool, ate lunch (rice, again. By this time Sophie is getting tired of rice!). And soon our driver returned to pick us up.

We asked him to take us to a market before we went back to the guest house so he dropped us off on the side of the road near the airport where Haitians were selling paintings and other trinkets. Now this was an experience. We, obviously tourists, with a little black girl, walking through the trash and dust to look at paintings. Three men immediately accosted us and told us to look at their things. "You like? You like?" They kept repeating. We picked out a couple of paintings, two wooden bowls and a small Haitian flag that Sophie really loved. They gave one to Christina as well. We haggled over price, came to an agreement, paid and walked away with them still trying to sell us more. Meanwhile, Christina was visibly unhappy about being on the side of the road where it was loud and crowded. She buried her head into my shoulder and held onto me for dear life.  All I wanted to do was get her back in the car where she felt safe. Sophie was a bit overwhelmed too, once the vendors realized Sophie was a little girl they tried to push necklaces and bracelets on her.  I was not worried about our safety, but the girls were a little stressed, so I was glad to wrap things up and get back to the car.

Where we stopped for paintings and wooden bowls.

The men followed us to the car and still tried to sell us things from the window as we drove away. Now that was a true Haitian experience. 

Traffic on the way home was terrible, bumper to bumper craziness. People were driving on the sidewalks on the wrong side of the road to try to get ahead. It was insane! Our driver was great at maneuvering through the traffic without being (too) crazy. Sophie occupied Christina by having her repeat English words. It delighted both of them. Finally Christina fell asleep, which was good, she was tired and needed a nap.

We finally made it back, and relaxed in our room for a while. Christina and I read a book, sang songs and played. She livens right up when she feels comfortable. She and Sophie played with their flags and played repeat the English word again. We ate an early dinner -- none of us were the least bit hungry-- of rice (Sophie was almost in tears over having to eat rice again), some sort of fish or scallops so neither Sophie or I ate it to be safe, avocado and potatoes and fried plantains. I don't think I will ever get tired of plantains, they are so good!

Sophie and Christina relaxing in the room.

Weston sat next to Christina to help her and she was a nut all through dinner, chatting and wiggling and smiling. She would point to which ever bite she wanted to be fed next.   She does not like red onion.  There were slices of red onion in the avocado and potato salad and she chewed on a piece of onion for a while, but could not swallow it.  Finally she spit it onto her plate.  She then took her fork and pushed all the red onion into a pile, picked it up and put it all on Weston's plate.  

We wanted to take one last walk throught the neighborhood, but the front gate was locked.  Christina watched us try the door, then she went up and tried it herself.  I was looking around the house for someone to open unlock the gate; Christina was talking a mile a minute, saying who knows what.  When I found Sonia and asked her to open the gate, she heard Christina jabbering away and said "Christina is telling you to go get the key.  'Le kle, le kle', she is saying to you.  She wants you to find the key".  One smart little girl.  

We passed by a house with two mean sounding dogs who barked and growled at us. I was very glad they were behind two fences.  Christina was not phased by their barking but kept calling out "chen, chen". We passed by other people walking the streets and said "Bon Soir" which some replied to with a smile and others totally ignored us.

After a short walk we went back to our room, once again we had A/C! Sophie and I bathed Christina, this time it was like wrestling a watermelon. She was full of vinegar, squirming, laughing and not being cooperative at all. It was a great big game. At one point she tried to climb the tub wall and I had to hold her down to finish her bath. To her defense, the water was really cold and she did not want to sit still and have the water splashed all over her. She did everything she could to get us to stop splashing the washcloth on her.

I had not touched her hair at all while we had her, the nannies had fixed it into pretty corn rows for us and I was afraid to mess it up. But by now her head was getting a bit smelly and her hair was not quite as neat. There as no way I was going to take her hair down and attempt to wash it and fix it, so I rubbed baby powder on her scalp to make it smell better and hoped the nannies wouldn't think I was a terrible mother for not changing her hairstyle the entire time we had her.

We put her in pjs, and snuggled up in our bed, all 4 of us. We put the movie on so Christina could finish watching it and she rested on Sophie's chest and tried to keep her eyes open. She finally gave up and fell fast asleep. We knew we had an early morning, Sonia told us she would take Christina with her back to the orphanage by 6am and her husband would take us to the airport a little later. I was too tired to take a shower and figured I would have time in the morning before we left. I also was not in the mood to freeze my tail off. Neither was Sophie, so only Weston took a shower. 

Her smile melts my heart!

Hamming it up for the camera

Today was our best day with Christina, by far.  I feel like we got a chance to really see what a fun, goofy, smart, happy little girl she is.  The pictures I got of her tonight as she was coloring capture her personality so well.  It is going to be hard, hard, hard to leave her tomorrow.  And we can't explain that we are coming back.  In fact, I have no idea if she even understands who we are or why she is staying with us.  My prayer is that she sees it as one fun field trip and falls right back into her routine with no problem.